Antivirus firms target Sony ‘rootkit’ | CNET News.com

It’s bad enough that the music industry has no qualms with preventing you from listening to the music you bought, but when they actually stoop to the level of secretly installing spyware on your machine, that’s just too far! Sony uses technology from First 4 Internet which secretly installs itself and interferes with cd-ripping even from non-protected CDs. Anyone want to start a class action suit? I’m fairly sure this software is illegal according to the DMCA. (ironic isn’t it?)

Developers become advertisers with Microsoft | The Register

Microsoft, under pressure from Yahoo and Google has come up with what some see as a half-baked plan for the future of their software. While the holes in Microsoft’s strategy may cause this latest effort to fail, the company’s tentacles stretch into every facet of our digital lives. (server, desktop, audio, video, gaming…) Now, they also want to make fixing flaws in their software a subscription service. However, the situation is more complex and potentially sinister. Microsoft is paying a security team to develop fixes for security flaws anyway. If MS charges a subscription fee, corporate customers will pay it just to ensure they are secure. Those who can’t pay will be left with systems open to exploitation. The exploited systems will be used by malicious individuals to attack other systems driving a continuing need for security services.

Resetting iPod if it appears frozen or doesn’t respond

In the words of Strong Bad, “You dodged a bullet there man.” I’ve heard of several people sending their iPods back because they simply stopped working. That happened to me today. I was listening to a podcast and paused it to run an errand. When I came back, my iPod wouldn’t turn on. Thankfully it had just frozen. If this has happened to you, try the link above before making that call to Apple.